There are a few reasons to outsource medical transcriptions, but more of these apply to any transcription; such as to easy the workload, or meet a deadline and so on.
One reason that applied to medical transcriptions only is simply the subject matter. Most secretaries could manage to transcribe a letter about buying a car, but few are capable of understanding, and even spelling, medical conditions and terms.
It has become common practice for licensed physicians and hospital executives to outsource their transcriptions to save them time, and often, although it may seem strange, money. In order to do in-house transcriptions a facility needs to hire an experienced, full-time transcriptionist and that means paying a high salary. There will no doubt be times when this person has no work to do, so they are literally getting ‘money for nothing’. Paying a transcription service means only paying for the time work is actually being done, and that often makes it much cheaper.
There will also be times when two or three transcriptions are needed urgently, but a single staff member simply cannot do them all at once. A reputable agency can.
Outsourcing is now used by many hospitals, clinics, doctors, nursing homes and other health care agencies, so there is a lot of work for anyone with the right knowledge.
Medical transcriptionists need to have a sound knowledge of medical terminology, including medical procedures, treatments and anatomy. This is one of the few transcription services where a small mistake could cost a life. A simple slip from ‘allergic’ to‘ non-allergic’ could mean life or death. At Singapore Transcription our medical transcribers are experienced professionals. They are used to working with patient’s records, administrative documents and physicians’ recordings, all done with attention to detail. A degree of some legal standards is also useful, as, amongst other things, the doctor/patient relationship comes under that heading and certain etiquette should be respected.
A Medical Transcriptionist Certification is available with a course lasting from six months to two years to earn a diploma or associate’s degree respectively. This allows any certified person to ask, and get, a much higher salary.